Katorga 12
Katorga 12 is a fictional island off the South East of the Russian mainland and the location of Ravensoft's FPS Singularity. Katorga 12 was first discovered by Russian miners on a journey to look for uranium during the 1950s and the height of the Cold War. The miners sent to the island and soon found that the island had hidden an incredibly precious but volatile mineral for decades that could provide virtually free and safe energy if handled correctly, this element was E-99. (Note the mineral E-99 can only be found on Katorga 12). Shortly after the mining expedition of Katorga 12 and the discovery of E-99, many civilians were sent there along with their families and a host of pets and other assorted animals who probably lived wild on katorga until the event of the Singularity. Many scientists were recruited to perform experiments using the newly discovered E-99 and were told to come to the island and stay there. Many of the scientists left their legacies in the form of video diaries showing their work and also typed letters depicting experiments being carried out on the island. The island was later abandoned by its inhabitants who were lucky enough to have been evacuated before the newly mutated plants, animals and people could attack and or kill them. The inhabitants who did not evacuate in time became mutants, an unfortunate bi-product of the radiation caused by the detonation of the E-99 bomb planted by Nathaniel Renko in the 1950s. The islands array of recently mutated people and animals quickly caused any surviving civilians to quickly go into hiding while also trying to escape to the mainland but were flushed out by the assualts of mutants. Katorga was once a very bountiful place and was split into small manageable sections close to the centre of the island. There is the Workers district which contained many E-99 processing plants to perform experiments using the mineral in a manner of bizarre ways such as enfusing the mineral to the milk served in the school's cafeteria which caused many worries amongst the teachers who used to work there evidence supporting this are the notes left by the teachers and also the audio recordings left by them. The next section is the Railways which transported equipment to and from the workers district to the village such as supplies and chemically enfused foods entwined with E-99. The railroads is inhabited by a giant phase tick who nearly killed Renkoon his journey to the harbour which brings us to our next section. The harbours are located at a small fjords at the East and West edges of Katorga. The harbour was were the civillains who were ordered to live on the island first arrived. This was a small harbour and where smaller boats arrived from the Russian mainland. This was the harvour located on the West side of the island. The second harbour was for heavy goods cargo boats such as the Pearl which was lost at see but really just sank to the bottom of te harbour. This harbour was used to store heavy machinery for the experimentation of E-99 which the boats carried from the Russian mainland. The next location was at the very centre of the island and is the spot where the singlarity was built. After Demichev rebuilt the Sigularity after its original destruction a giant pillar of radiation was released into the sky hence the large spiralling pillar of energy at the middle of the island as seen in gameplay. ORIGINAL TIMELINE (DEMICHEV'S PRE-DESTINED FATE) After a fire destroyed most of the worker's district a fellow researcher to Barisov, Nikolai Demichev, was killed during the accident. Without Demichev's political influence the island soon ran out of labourors. Shortly afterwards an unexplained accident caused the island to be evacuated and for all evidence of the experiments done using E-99 to be covered up. ALTERED TIMELINE (DEMICHEV'S NEW FATE) During the fire that normally would have killed Demichev, Nathaniel Renko transported by a time warp/skip, saved him from falling to his death. Demichev quickly recovered and proceeded to do experiments using E-99. Demichev pressed on with the development of new weapons using E-99 and eventually the Singularity. An E-99 bomb was produced and was used to destroy the U.S.A. as a response to America's Nuclear bomb. This made Demichev extremely powerful and eventually lead to him ruling the world. Katorga has been abandoned ever since Renko left with the exception of Kathryn and possibly the remnants of Mir 12.